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Thursday, June 18, 2009

It's not about the Holocaust, Mr. President.

Yom chamishi, 26 Sivan 5769.

The following poem is reprinted with permission from the author, Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo. Please see more of his very thoughtful and uplifting essays at his website, The David Cardozo Academy: Jewish Education for a Complex World. In a world I could affect, I would ask President Obama to sit quietly with his Secretary of State and listen deeply to a reading of this poem, read with all the feeling it engenders by one of my many dear Baltimore friends whose hearts weep with a desire to live in the Jewish homeland. Would the message be heard? I cannot know. But I know that you, dear reader, will hear it.

How long do I stand here?
Nearly 4000 years,
since the days of my grandfather Abraham
when he nearly sacrificed his son
at Mount Moriah.

I see the Wall with its frozen tears,
and passing clouds with many sighs.
I read millions of names:
Born
in Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Poland,
Spain, Hungary, America and South Africa.

But that was only in a dream.
In reality
we Jews were all born in Israel, and then exiled by Titus.
Although most of us began our childhoods
in foreign countries,
we merely camped in these places, but never dwelled in them.

And at the end of our lives,
Though our tombstones may stand in Exile,
our bodies are buried in the dust of Israel.

***

The return to Zion is unprecedented.
It is sui generis.
The State of Israel is a surprise,
a shock,
for it is the story of a nation in exile
which never had to return because it never left.
It lifted its Holy Land from its native soil,
transformed it into a portable homeland,
carrying it to all corners
of the earth,
only to replant it again in its native land
when the students of Titus can no longer prevent it from doing so.

***
Mr. President,

Israel was not built on the ashes of Auschwitz.
It is founded on the Bible,
a divine text rooted in the Jewish experience of nearly 4000 years.
A Heilsgeschichte, a Redemptive History
for all of mankind.

Israel was not created because of the Holocaust,
but rather despite the Holocaust.

***

Jerusalem

Only the Jews, for thousands of years, prayed and continue to pray for its rebuilding.

No other people.

Only the Jews mourn its destruction of nearly two thousand years ago.

No other nation.

It is only they who weep, sitting on the floor on the date of the Temple's desecration
in the month of Av, year after year.

No other people.

It is only they who for two thousand years break a glass under the marriage canopy, an expression of sorrow for Jerusalem.
(How many millions of glasses were broken throughout exile?)

No other nation.

It is only the Jews who for thousands of years build their houses but leave a part of the wall unplastered because of the loss of their Temple.

No other people.

It is only Jewish women who do not wear all their jewelry at once, in deference to the destruction of the House of God.

No other women.

And it is only the Jews who cover their dead with the dust of the land of Israel even when they bring their dear ones to their final resting place outside the land of Israel.

No other burial society.

Neither Titus' offspring,
nor Saladin's descendants,
nor Godfrey of Bouillon, the crusader, nor his children,
ever mourned, prayed or buried their dead in the Earth of the Holy Land.

This, dear President, you must learn.

For without this knowledge,
there will be no way to make peace.

@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@%@

Thank you, Rabbi, for making it as clear as it can be. May the Borei Olam cause that these words be heard by all Jewish hearts -- for, at the end of the day, these are the only hearts that matter. Once we know that these concepts are true, then Hashem will turn the hearts of our enemies, and even the hearts of our friends.

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About Me

I am anxious for everyone to get along, starting with the Jews. Scratch that. Starting with religious Jews. Hmmmm... probably still a lot to strive for. How about religious Jews in Israel? In Gush Etzion? In my yishuv? How about let's just start with my family. Okay, guys. As Abba says, "World peace starts at this table." Let's get our act together, and bring Moshiach.

In small ways, every day, I try to to do my part to rectify the error in judgment of my zaydies, the meraglim. "See these big grapes? We can make really big wine!"